Yesterday was the first day we were home all day in I don’t even remember when, so we lived it up. We stayed in our jammies the entire day (I can’t remember the last time I did that either. I took a shower at 8 last night and just put a clean pair of jammies on), we played board games, we made up stories about penguins who hated the cold weather and we baked chocolate chip zucchini bread.

Paradise.

And I sent a good chunk of the day working on something EXTRA special that I cannot wait to tell you guys about very soon!! Mark your calendars for this next week, friends, because I’ve got a lineup of some fabulous books written by some fantastic ladies that you won’t want to miss this fall and a special announcement next Friday!! 🙂

In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to:

We went to California to visit Jon’s family and had SO SO SO much fun. We miss our family so much!! About 80% of these pictures were taken from my beautiful sister-in-law, Vicky. 🙂 Thanks Vick!!

Parker went on his first plane ride! Other than his baby pterodactyl yelling for about twenty minutes – not mad, just loud – he did great. 😉

We are here and we are excited!!

Parker met his other great-grandparents for the first time!! I SO wish I’d gotten a picture of the four great grandchildren and the four great grandparents but I was so busy I didn’t even think about it. Next time. 🙂

In-N-Out with the cousins. LOVE.

We were spoiled completely rotten there and were treated to IKEA, Cheesecake Factory, this amazing ice cream shop, In-N-Out, an amazing barbecue my father-in-law made… holy cow. So sweet of them!!

Snuggles with Nonnie. 🙂 

We adore Allen and Vicky!!

 Grins with Uncle Tommy. 🙂

Us at Cheesecake.

Vicky is a professional photographer and captured these AMAZING shots… LOVE. These are getting framed in my house!!

We were boarding the flight to come home and Nathan walked up the stewardess and asked if he could look at the pilots and next thing I know, this happened. 😉 Ha! They were letting him click buttons and push levers and alarms were sounding and it was just nice and terrifying. He sat down in his seat and declared he was going to be a pilot when he grew up.

Tired boys on the way home. We played our hearts out in Cali!

I walked in and found him like this after a nap – he’s getting so big I can’t even stand it.

We came home and Jon went right back to work at his school and we went right back to craziness. We are doing a little preschool at home this year with Nathan and he is LOVING it.

So fun!! I love seeing how excited he gets over this. 🙂 We’ve been reading a lot and working on letters and numbers and drawing pictures. He told me he might be an artist instead because he loved coloring so much. Or a storyteller because he loved telling stories.

“Actually, I’m going to be an animal doctor, Mom.”

Someone is on the move lately. I found him like this in his crib after a nap and then we had a progression across the living room where no one touched him and he just kept scooting around. SO not ready for this! Ha! I have no idea how to babyproof with a four-year-old in the house!!

We took the boys to their first real movie in the theaters this last weekend. Nathan had gone with me to see Rio in the dollar theater a long time ago, but this was his first time at the big theater. We saw Planes 2 and he LOVED it. Then he decided he was maybe going to be a firefighter instead. 😉 And Parker did great – he watched about half the movie and then slept and ate through the other half.

I heart these boys.

Just a typical afternoon when Dad gets off work. 😉 Thanks Gammy and Pops for the super realistic Spider-Man outfit. 😉

Park time with the beautiful Beechem girls! The O’Brien boys are fans.

Yesterday’s fun. Anytime I sit down it’s a free for all on my lap. Ha! Love Parker’s concentration as they “cooked” the zucchini bread. “Actually, Mom, I might be a chef.”

We were waiting in the car for Dad and I let them come up front with me which is a HUGE deal, apparently. 😉 While we were there, we saw some people in scrubs and Nathan decided that he might actually be a “people doctor” instead.

Love these days.